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August 28, 2012

Arctic Sea Ice Melts to Lowest Point as "Worst-Case Scenario" Appears Real 
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U.S. government scientists have disclosed the sea ice in the Arctic
Ocean has melted to its smallest size ever, potentially signaling that
the "worst-case scenario" of global warming is becoming a reality. The
National Snow and Ice Data Center and the NASA space agency says the
Arctic sea ice has dwindled to some 27,000-square-miles less than the
previous record set in 2007. The ice will likely continue to melt with
several weeks of summer weather still to come. In a statement,
government scientists said the melting of the Arctic sea ice "is
considered a strong signal of long-term climate warming." Speaking to
Agence France-Presse, Michael Mann, the author of a major 2001 report on
climate change and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn
State University, said: "This is an example that points more to the
worst-case scenario side of things. There are a number of areas where in
fact climate change seems to be proceeding faster and with a greater
magnitude than what the models predicted."

 

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